SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/4/2015
9:05 PM
My Worship Time Focus: God
Pronounces the Sentence PT-7A
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Hosea
9:10-17
Message of the
verses: “10 I found Israel like
grapes in the wilderness; I saw your forefathers as the earliest fruit on the
fig tree in its first season. But they came to Baal-peor and devoted themselves
to shame, And they became as detestable as that which they loved. 11 As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away
like a bird- No birth, no pregnancy and no conception! 12 Though they bring up
their children, Yet I will bereave them until not a man is left. Yes, woe to
them indeed when I depart from them! 13 Ephraim, as I have seen, Is planted in
a pleasant meadow like Tyre; But Ephraim will bring out his children for
slaughter. 14 Give them, O LORD-what will You give? Give them a miscarrying
womb and dry breasts. 15 All their evil is at Gilgal; Indeed, I came to hate them there!
Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of My house! I
will love them no more; All their princes are rebels. 16 Ephraim is stricken,
their root is dried up, They will bear no fruit. Even though they bear
children, I will slay the precious ones of their womb. 17 My God will cast them
away Because they have not listened to Him; And they will be wanderers among
the nations.”
We will just look at these verses from chapter nine in
this SD and then in our next SD from Hosea we will look at the ten verses in
chapter ten. We see that the theme of
these verses along with chapter ten is about agriculture, which is surely
something that Israel was very familiar with and we know that the Lord uses
things that His children are familiar with to make points to them, to cause
them to see spiritual things.
As Hosea begins this section he reviews things from the
past, things that should cause Israel to remember when life was good as they
all worshiped the Lord. In Warren
Wiersbe’s commentary on this section he states that it is hard to find grapes
in the desert, but as I think back from my studies in the book of Numbers I
remember that it was Israel’s idea to send twelve spies into the Promised Land
to spy out the people of the land and I also remember them needing two men to
carry some of the grapes that were found there.
Hosea next speaks of the early fruit from a fig tree. In two of the gospels we see that the Lord
cursed a fig tree because there was no fruit on it and spiritually speaking He
was doing this to Israel for there was at best, little fruit with them as God
always has a remnant who will produce fruit.
The early fruit that Israel was producing was so much better than what
was going on in the days of Hosea.
Remember back in the book of Numbers when King Balak was
using Baalam to curse Israel but God would not let him do it. Later on Balak and Baalam introduced Israel to
Baal, and later on in the lives of the nation of Israel Baal worship became
very prevalent in their lives, and this is one of the main reasons that God was
about to destroy the Northern Kingdom.
In verse thirteen we see that Hosea reminds the people
that God had planted them in a very good place, but because of their idol
worship they polluted the land with those idols and now they must suffer the
bitter harvest of what they had sown. Dr.
Wiersbe offers this end note: “The adults
sin and the children have to suffer: ‘Ephraim shall bring forth his children to
the murderers’ (9:13 KJV). When Hosea
speaks in verse 14, he asks God to keep the women from having children so they
won’t be murdered. He is pleading for
mercy for the innocent. See our Lord’s
words in Luke 23:29.” “"For behold,
the days are coming when they will say, ’Blessed are the barren, and the wombs
that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’”
7/4/2015 9:28 PM
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